The Executive and Professional Coaching Program in the School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas has earned the Accredited Coach Training Program (ACTP) designation from the International Coach Federation, making it one of only three accredited university programs in the nation.
Less than two years old, the program is now the only university ACTP in the United States that offers a full professional certificate that can be achieved by distance learning.
The program provides professionals interested in becoming certified, either as an executive and professional coach or in learning more about the fast-growing field, with a thorough grounding in the theories, concepts and skills needed to perform individual and group coaching within an organizational environment. The program offers a graduate certificate designed for working professionals. In addition, it utilizes distance learning technology and offers a flexible format that includes graduate credit hours that can be applied toward a master’s degree.
Certification as an International Coach Federation (ICF) accredited program is a rigorous screening process that includes documentation of faculty, classes, processes, standards, ethics, business practices and admissions requirements.
“We are honored to receive this accreditation,” said Dr. David Springate, UT Dallas’ associate dean for executive education. “The school considers executive and professional coaching important to leadership development, and now we’ve been examined by outside professionals, measured by their standards and found to hit the mark. This puts us in an elite group of world-class programs.”
UT Dallas’ Dr. Robert Hicks established the school’s executive and professional coach training program in 2005 in collaboration with Judy Feld, who is a former ICF president and holds the organization’s top certification as a master certified coach.
“This is a major accomplishment for us because it validates the quality of our program and will also help us in our recruiting,” said Hicks, program director for the UT Dallas coach training program. “We find that the majority of our students are interested in an accredited coach training program because there are a lot of privileges and implications that are positive from being a graduate of such a program.”
“What this means for our program is that it becomes much more attractive to our students who are interested in a professional credential,” said Feld, training director for the program. “There are two paths professionals can take, and by satisfying UT Dallas’ requirements, students have satisfied the educational requirements of the ICF for the credential and practicum requirements — supervised coaching and a comprehensive exam. Students want this because the alternative is to go through a more complex and expensive practice. They work really hard to get there, and we are now able to make it easier to gain their coaching credential.”
The program is partnered with the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching, an organization that seeks to elevate graduate education for executive and professional coaching, and Hicks is its current president. The School of Management is also a recipient of ICF’s International Prism Award, which recognizes organizations that have enhanced excellence and achievement through their commitment to professional coaching as a leadership strategy.
The ICF, a 13,000-member organization, is dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high standards, providing independent certification and building a worldwide network of credentialed coaches. Accreditation is awarded to programs that meet the rigorous professional standards established by the organization.
About the School of Management
The School of Management is the largest of UT Dallas’ seven schools, with an enrollment of nearly 4,700, of which 2,500 are graduate students. Faculty in the school rank 32nd in research productivity nationwide, based on publications in the top 24 business journals spanning all areas of business. Financial Times, using a broader set of 40 journals, ranks UT Dallas’ management faculty 30th worldwide. Financial Times also ranks the university’s Executive MBA program 48th in the world and 22nd in the U.S, and U.S. News and World Report lists UT Dallas’ fulltime Cohort MBA program 54th nationwide and 25th at public colleges and universities in the United States.
About UT Dallas
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor®, enrolls more than 14,500 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UT Dallas, please visit the university’s website at www.utdallas.edu.
Contact Jill Glass, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2741, pschoch@utdallas.edu